


Burn-in Monitor

by soft_decay



Category: Petscop (Web Series)
Genre: Brief Mentions of Suicide/Organs, Heavy - Freeform, KEEP GAME CONSOLE RUNNING, Mental Anguish, Petscop 16, paul can't catch a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28875915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_decay/pseuds/soft_decay
Summary: No controller input has been detected for a very long time.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	Burn-in Monitor

Paul doesn’t know what he expects when he quits. 

All he knows is that he can’t continue. That’s the sickest he's ever felt, playing the game. Instead of the usual nausea, it feels like his stomach has disappeared completely, leaving a hollow, aching void in its place. 

The game has eaten his insides.

He can’t. That’s it. He drops the controller and stumbles to the only place he feels remotely safe—the bed. He buries his face in his pillow, not wanting to see those garish walls or that piano or _anything._

Darkness. Paul wishes he could make his head that empty. 

Instead, like a parent’s speech habits you can’t purge from your own mouth, the game comes back, no matter how much he hates it. It floats to the surface of the darkness, Paul’s most personal memories regurgitated in cold, clinical text boxes.

He briefly considers smothering himself with the pillow. _No, stupid. You could never do it._ He pulls the covers over himself. More darkness will shut off his brain. Maybe he can sleep forever. 

_Time doesn’t exist in here._ What month is it? What year is it? All Paul knows is the waiting between DEMO playbacks, the tiles-per-second walking speed of his character. Maybe if he persisted, and just lay here long enough... 

_Long enough for what? Long enough to die? Long enough for the game to die? Long enough for the family to die?_

“Fuck me.” 

Bright red flashes through his thin sheets, burning into his brain. There’s a horrible buzzing sound.

“ _Fuck me.”_

With his face in the pillow again, Paul presses his hands to his ears, trying to block out the noise. It’s no use. It pierces right through.

Desperately, angrily, he pounds his mattress with his fists. 

Of course. How could Paul ever think he deserved a fucking break? He’s a prisoner, a piece of shit.

With a groan, he rips off his useless blanket. His eyes sting as he squints at the TV screen.

  
  


**_No controller input has been detected for a very long time._ **

**_Family, neighbors, police, (or whoever,) KEEP GAME CONSOLE RUNNING, call provided phone number._ **

  
  


The message makes him weak. Paul sinks back into his bed, red flashing in his eyes, the noise stabbing his eardrums. 

Ha. Ha-ha. If only someone else were here. Family, neighbors, police. Whoever. Then he could scream at them, or cry, or laugh, or tell them everything. Something. 

The more Paul lies there, so very alone, with only his corrupted thoughts and the game attacking his senses, the more insane he feels. Eventually, he gets up and teeters back into his chair. He picks up the controller, fixes his eyes to that terrible screen, and presses X.

The game will eat his flesh, then his skull, then his brain.

_And you can't do anything._

**Author's Note:**

> i remember watching Petscop 16 for the first time and just being horrified. it's a unique one.  
> happy 2021.


End file.
